


say my name and I'll come running

by verity



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Self-cest, tfw ur facebook relationship status with urself is "it's complicated"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-10 06:25:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12293199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: The other Summer stepped out of the portal like she was coming straight from Bath & Body Works our freshman year of high school, dressed in jorts and a crop top and a shower of Cucumber Melon body mist with a space rifle slung across her back.





	say my name and I'll come running

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dadvans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadvans/gifts).



> dedicated with love to my brother-from-another-mother who made me watch this fucking show. thanks to Nomanono for betaing.
> 
> content notes: one universe in this story contains a Rick and Smith family who have died. Rick C-137 is still alive.

Mom won't let me go to a tanning salon, which she's paranoid about because of cancer and not because of aliens, so I was laying out in the backyard when the portal opened up. The new neighbors behind us were having a birthday party for one of their kids, lots of screaming and splashing in the above-ground pool, and it's honestly unfair, okay, that they get a pool and _I_ just have two shallow graves back here. 

That doesn't have anything to do with the portal. It's just not fair, and I don't like it.

The other Summer stepped out of the portal like she was coming straight from Bath & Body Works my freshman year of high school, dressed in jorts and a crop top and a shower of Cucumber Melon body mist with a space rifle slung across her back. Tinkles floated through the portal behind her before it winked closed, leaving the stucco backside of the garage look pretty much like it always does. "Oh my god," I said, holding out my arms to Tinkles. "There's a universe where you're not secretly a space parasite?"

Tinkles looked up at the other me. 

"This one has C-137," Summer said.

"Ah," said Tinkles. The little cloud of sparkle around her sparkled. 

"Get it together, Summer," said Summer. "You're the only one of us left who's, like, functional. I need your help."

* * *

"Hi, honey," said Dad, and then, "hi, honey." 

"He's always like that," I said to Summer.

"Uh huh," Summer said. "My Jerry is dead." 

I tried not to stare at myself too much while she pulled the rifle over her head and broke it down on top of my bedspread. The only other me I'd ever met was C-137 Summer, Morty's Summer, and she was kind of feral and _her_ Mom and Dad had wanted to kill me. Mine just talk about how I'm going to grow up to be a stripper. 

"Do you have a Rick and Morty wherever you're—" I gestured vaguely toward the multiverse, so at my ceiling. "From?" Presumably the Linda-Hamilton-as-Sarah-Connor-still-shops-at-Justice dimension.

"I had a Rick. What weapons did he have you qualify on?"

"None?" I said. "I'm a pretty good shot. I, uh, shot Tinkles in the head a couple months ago. Sorry."

Tinkles blinked at me slowly. It was getting weird how she didn't chatter or dance or sing or anything.

"All of your Ricks are garbage," Summer said. "What's your driving like?"

"I have a license?"

"I guess that'll do," she said. Up close, Summer smelled even more like cucumber melon. Her hair was kind of ragged at the end of her ponytail, all split ends and the fading ghost of a blonde dye job, and her shirt really was from Justice—no wonder it was so short. The sequined hearts were holding up surprisingly well.

"So what do you need? A getaway driver?" I said, trying not to sound too excited. "Backup?"

Tinkles stared at me. "What a baby." Her voice chimed.

I stared back at Tinkles until I had to blink. She didn't have to blink ever, because she's a stuffed animal. Her dead eyes made me so angry. Like being a baby ever got me out of Grandpa Rick's quote-unquote adventures or working for the Devil. Like I got a choice about the graves in my backyard or being born or any of that. 

"I need someone to drive, yeah," said Summer. "I can only drive automatic and Rick's ship is a stick."

"I've flown it before!" Once or twice. Which counted, right?

Summer nodded. "Okay." She slung the rifle back over her shoulder, cleaned and reassembled. "And you shot Tinkles, so—you can deal with—that."

"What's _that_ ," I said slowly.

"We have to kill her," Summer said. "C-248. Ourself."

* * *

Of course. there's Evil Summer. Not like there's as many of us, but there's an entire council of Ricks, teeming with evil Ricks and boring Ricks and like one nice Rick, so it makes sense. The part that doesn't make sense is the part where one of those Ricks wouldn't just take Evil Summer out.

"I asked the Council for help," Summer said. "They didn't take us seriously. I mean, why would they? We're just Summer."

I've been _just Summer_ my whole life, so I get it. "There wouldn't even be any Mortys without us. We came first."

"Sometimes," Summer said.

"Those other universes suck. Ours are clearly better, because they have us. We're Summer Smith. We matter." I fistpumped. In that moment, I almost believed it.

Tinkles cleared her throat with a musical cough. "We're running out of time."

"Yeah, okay, whatever," I said. "Take me to your spaceship, Summer. Give me a cool gun, okay?"

* * *

Summer gave me a cool gun. That was, like, all she had in her house—guns and Lean Cuisines and store-brand diet soda. "We usually use the backyard as a range," she said. "Why don't you test it out?"

Outside made C-137 look pretty homey and inviting. The backyard of the crumbling farmhouse didn't have any pool or any neighbors or anything aside from brittle brown grass under the ominous gray skies. The gun turned out to be pretty easy to use, though—it auto-aimed for you once you stuck the neural link on your temple. I pretended I was Jeri Ryan on the Star Trek that Mom likes. Borg Jeri Ryan and Sarah Connor would make a legit team.

Back inside, Summer was throwing clothes into her backpack. I wandered around the living room and looked at the pictures on the walls. Birdperson and Rick with Mom at her preschool graduation, Birdperson and Rick with Mom at science fair, Birdperson and—oh, shit, that wasn't Mom. That was me. That was Summer. Summer and her gay dads who made her certify on space weapons.

I turned around and saw Tinkles watching me from the doorway. She was floating in a soft, glittery cloud that pulsed with rainbow light every few seconds.

"You were my best friend in my universe," I said. "I mean, that's what I thought, but it turned out that you were actually a parasite who gave me fake memories. I bet you're Summer's real best friend in this universe, though."

Tinkles didn't say anything.

I went back out into the kitchen and drank a diet lemon-lime soda that mostly tasted like aspartame, which Mom won't let me drink because it gives rats cancer. Maybe Birdperson liked diet soda or something. Summer was taking a long time, so I ate a Lean Cuisine, too. One of the pizza ones. While I chewed on the fake pizza, I thought about what an evil me would be like. Being evil just seemed like a lot of work.

"I'm ready," Summer said. The skin around her eyes was kind of puffy. "Let's go."

* * *

This Rick's ship was a lot nicer than the one I was used to. The clutch didn't grind when I shifted into second gear and there were a bunch of photos of Birdperson and Summer stuck around the dash. No photos of Mom. "Uh, not to be rude," I said as the ship scanned the first QR code on Summer's itinerary, "but like, which parents of yours are dead?"

Summer looked up, her eyes narrowing. "Birdperson's still alive. Don't get weird about it."

"Good job on not turning evil despite, like, the tragic backstory."

"How do you know that I'm not Evil Summer?"

"I don't," I said.

We were all quiet for a while—me, me, and Tinkles, hotboxing with Cucumber Melon body mist in a tiny spaceship. I wondered if this spaceship would protect Summer at all costs, too. Pretty much anything could turn out kind of evil if you didn't keep an eye on it. Look at Mr. Meeseeks.

As we zipped through space, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. "So… Evil Summer, what's her deal?"

"She tried to kill me," Summer said.

"So we're, like, trying to kill her back?"

"I am," Summer said. "You're just driving."

"Right," I said.

* * *

There wasn't any Evil Summer on the first planet we checked, but there was a mall. Summer wouldn't let me do any shopping. "We could get you clothes that fit." I said. "We could get me clothes."

"Just wear something of mine," Summer said. "We're not going to take super long."

This ship had a bed that came out of the sides and folded over the reclined seats, plus blankets that were soft and smelled vaguely musty. I put on a too-short nightie and laid down next to Summer, back-to-back. This had to be what a real adventure was like: the Rick-and-Morty, life-or-death version of camping. The roughing it thing where your old panties dug into your ass and the mattress was hard was probably part of the appeal, but I couldn't get comfortable. "Do you care if I sleep naked?" I said eventually. "Like, you're me, so…"

"No," Summer said. She rolled on her side to watch me shimmy her panties down my hips and pull her Tweetie Bird nightie over my head. "Is it weird if I, um…"

Our eyes met over the blankets between us. If there was an Evil Summer, obviously there had to be a Gay Summer. I wasn't expecting to be, like, into it, but you know what? I'm cute. My boobs could be bigger, but they're pretty great. And I definitely know how to get myself off, so… why not?

I leaned over and kissed Summer like I like to be kissed, which is hard and a lot of tongue. She squirmed for a moment before she started kissing back, her hands cautiously sliding up my sides. I cupped her breast through her t-shirt and she gasped into my mouth, pulling away for a moment. "I—I've never done this before."

"Wow, Summer," I said. "I guess you went to the wrong kind of slumber parties."

Summer stared at me for a moment. I was still holding her boob. "I've never been to a slumber party."

"Whatever," I said. "Are we having sex or not?"

Gay Summer might never have been to a slumber party, but she knew exactly how I liked to be touched. We just made out and ground up on each other for a while at first, until she was making my thigh wet and shaking while I rolled spitty fingertips over her nipples. It made me feel like some kind of sex wizard, right up until she stuck her hand between my legs and started stroking my clit the way that gets me off in about thirty seconds. We were both sex wizards. 

This was exactly why everybody has hypothetical conversations about fucking your alternate universe self.

* * *

The next morning, Summer had trouble looking me in the face. My hip was sore from sleeping on the shitty mattress, but I felt pretty great. 

"Okay, Gay Summer," I said. "Where to next?"

Summer frowned. "Why am _I_ Gay Summer? Is this because I have gay dads?"

I rolled my eyes. "Weren't you just saying we had, like, a mission? A super urgent mission? Too urgent to go to the mall? You _love_ the mall."

"That's you, Gay Summer."

So we hopped a few portals, looking in places I'd never look for myself: libraries, bowling alleys, Sears. Judging by the team photo on the wall, the second bowling alley was a frequent haunt of Rick and Birdperson—some Rick and some Birdperson, anyway. Sears was having a sale on gas grills. The libraries all looked pretty much the same aside from the one filled with sentient pizza. 

"So is Evil Summer, like, Nerd Summer, or Big Lebowski Summer, or Summer-the-Tool-Girl-Smith Summer?" I said when we got out of pizzabrary. "Maybe she's a Gay Summer, too. Do lesbians like Sears?"

"These are the last entries on my Rick's portal gun," Summer said. "I was looking for the Rick who killed him when I ran into her."

Okay, there's probably plenty of Rick-on-Rick violence, but not so much Rick-on-Rick homicide. "Wait… was he killed by the serial Rick killer?"

"Allegedly he was brought to justice by the counsel," Summer said. "But—" She stared out the windshield like she was staring into space, even though we were parked in front of a Fazoli's that served people. Beside her, Tinkles's glittering aura grew darker and more menacing. "He's a Rick. How am I supposed to believe that?"

"I think my Morty helped kill him?" According to Morty, he'd been hailed as a messiah and led some kind of Morty uprising, but Morty also sincerely thought he might have a shot with Jessica and that raising his alien sexbot baby was a good idea. 

Tinkles couldn't roll her eyes, but she did something with her cute little lamb nose. "He's a Morty, what does he know?"

"Hey," I said. "You guys don't have a Morty, how would you—"

That was when Evil Summer showed up in the parking lot of Denny's.

For some reason, I'd been imagining her looking like Harley Quinn, or maybe Mrs. White from Clue. You know. Evil. Real evil, the kind that family therapy or poop-eating therapy couldn't fix. But she just looked like… me.

Well, not me, the real me—whatever that means, I guess. Not me or Gay Summer or Feral Summer. Evil Summer was a Perfect Summer. She had bigger boobs and a perfect ass and those J Brand capris I couldn't afford even on sale. Her hair was flawless copper-and-auburn bayalage and—was that Rihanna's lip gloss? She was everything I wanted to be. She was _hot_.

"Um, hi," Evil Summer said, waving. "I just wanted to say hi? Hi other Summers! Sorry to bother you, but—" She raised a stunner like it could shoot us through the windshield.

Tinkles put her palm daintily on the console. "Ship," she said musically. "Protect my Summer."

"Oh my god, do you know what that _does_?" I said as the ship started beeping and uttering ominous warnings. Evil Summer blinked her long lashes and aimed.

Gay Summer looked over at me. her eyes a little damp. "Rick made her for us, remember?"

" _Your_ Rick did." My Tinkles had come from Toys R Us, which, looking back, should have made me suspicious.

This Rick's ship might have been nicer than the one parked in my garage, but it had a similar vocabulary when it came to threat extermination. Evil Summer dodged laser strikes for a few minutes before the ship changed its tactics and suspended her and the gun in a gravity-free holo beam. " _Come on_ , Summer," she whined, her hair fluttering around her. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm just supposed to switch our bodies and kill myself! That's totally different!"

" _Protect my Summer_ ," said the ship.

I glanced over at Gay Summer because I already knew she was thinking about it. Her face was pale and determined as she grabbed the comm off the console. "Does your universe have a Rick? Does it have a Birdperson?"

I snatched the comm out of her hand before this could escalate any further. "Summer, what the fuck. Don't you know what Ricks are like? You don't want some random Rick you don't know. Mine doesn't even _like_ me."

"Then you wouldn't understand, would you?"

"Get over yourself," I said. "I don't have the Rick I started out with either."

Like I said, it's not fair. I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for my little brother the first time, and I definitely didn't ask for him the second time. I didn't have to, though, because he abandoned his original universe to get back to me. Wait. "Who sent you here?" I said over the comm. "Was it Rick or Morty?"

Evil Summer blinked her eyes at us from zero grav. "Morty said he wanted a real Summer."

Tinkles grumbled musically.

"Oh my god, are you a sexbot?" I said. "Don't answer that."

"I'm made with real human DNA," Evil Summer said. "For sex. Like a quarter of the world's population, duh. Do you want to have sex with me?"

Gay Summer looked at me, wide-eyed. 

"Who's Gay Summer now?" I said.

* * *

So, I didn't kill Evil Summer, I just… froze her and shrunk her in time and put her in one of Gay Summer's Rick's pocket dimensions. After some awkward back-and-forth-ing between purse, cryo-stabilizer, and mini-fridge, Summer stuck the pocket into the glovebox. "I guess our mission is complete."

"Yeah," I said wistfully. "I didn't even get to shoot anyone."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now," she said. Tinkles climbed into her lap and put her head against Summer's shoulder, her shimmer cloud half-obscuring Summer's face. This should probably have been cute, but it was a little creepy.

"Get drunk," I said, ticking off things on my fingers. "Sleep it off. Then I'll drop you back at Birdperson's planet, okay?"

* * *

So we got drunk—sloppy drunk—and fucked in the ship again. Summer ate me out like she was never going to get her mouth on her own cunt again, and I let her sit on my face. Then we passed out. I woke up face-to-pubes with a massive hangover and Tinkles staring at me over the side of the bed.

This was the best mission ever and I already knew I couldn't tell anyone about it. Morty would jerk off to it for years, though I hoped he'd learned the sexbot lesson after that time he was a teen dad. I was just going to have to blatantly lie about everything. Rick would be proud. 

"Just one thing," I said as Summer pulled up the coordinates. "We're totally hitting the mall on the way."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
